Fun Facts About Recycling

There are a lot of reasons why it is important to recycle. Aside from the fact that it helps take good care of the environment, those who hire skip bins will have more space for non-recyclable waste. You will get better value for the money you spend for skip bins as you are able to dispose more waste.

It is strongly recommended that you sort your waste first into biodegradable and non-biodegradable items. This makes sure that everything you put in the skip bin truly belongs there.

Did you know these things about recycling?

Newcastle Skip Bins advocates for responsible waste removal. This is why we have prepared a list of fun facts about recycling that will inspire you to reduce, reuse and recycle!

· Australia has one of the highest waste generation per capita in the world.

This means that an Australian generates more waste than any individual from other countries. The average Australian household generates around 400 kilograms of waste material every year.

· Landfills are always densely packed.

Degradation of waste occurs an aerobically or without the presence of oxygen. This process produces a significant amount of methane gas which has 25 times the capacity to contribute to global warming as compared to carbon dioxide.

· Glass bottles takes millenniums to decompose.

A glass bottle that has been dumped in a landfill will take about 4000 to a million years before it can completely break down. Fortunately, materials made out of glass can be recycled an unlimited number of times.

· You can get energy from recycling aluminium.

The energy that is conserved from recycling an aluminium can be used to power a television for 3 hours.

· It’s best to recycle paper than to throw it away.

Recycling one kilogram of paper or cardboard instead of sending it to a landfill will reduce the greenhouse gas produced by one kilogram.

· Australia was the top recycler of newspapers in 2008.

For each tonne of newspaper recycled, three cubic metres of landfill space is conserved.

· One of the major waste materials produced in Sydney is plastic bags.

Australians use almost 4 billion plastic bags every year. The petroleum used to make just nine plastic bags can provide the energy for a car to run a kilometre. This means that the plastic bags used by Australians each year could fuel a car on a 450 million-kilometre trip.

· Australians use around 376,000 tonnes of plastic packaging each year.

Plastic packaging takes around 500 years to break down. Recycling a plastic bottle conserves enough energy to make computer run for 25 minutes.

· Plastics that we dispose into the ocean each year account for the death of about a million sea creatures.

One major contributor to the death of these creatures is the fishing industry which disposes of around 150,000 tonnes of plastic into the ocean every year, including packaging, lines, buoys, and nets.

· The amount of electronic waste produced in Australia is huge.

Batteries are one of the common wastes being dumped in landfills. 350 million units are bought each year, and two thirds of these are sent to the landfill. The nickel from these batteries can still be recycled and used for the production of stainless steel.

Why you should start recycling today

Waste removal is vital. However, not all wastes should necessarily be dumped into skip bins and sent to the landfill. Several companies take recyclable materials and process it the right way to reduce the carbon footprint produced in the country. The facts we’ve listed above only show that the responsibility of caring for the environment lies not only on the shoulders of big companies but on the citizens as well.